{UAH} The Sun and Mail tried to crush Corbyn. But their power over politics is broken
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8:03 AM |
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It's the Sun wot didn't win it. And despite the Mail's pages and pages of frenzied warnings about how electing communist terrorists would be the end of the world, the Mail didn't do it for their woman either. Theresa May is a creature of the Mail after all. She is everything they want in a woman: repressed, married, slim. A stooping exercise in personal restraint, albeit one who will send out racist vans on a chill day. Her childlessness fits their agenda: this is what happens to "career women", the price that has to be paid. She is uptight and puritanical, their idea of what Christian means. Shoes and statement jewellery stand in for recognisable human traits.
The fact that she, in their words, "blew it" (note the instantaneous transfer of blame) means that vast numbers of voters took no notice of the rightwing tabloids. Young voters were not put off Labour by the rightwing press, or they just don't read it. This is huge: part of the readjustment of power now having to be made.
The sudden thrust in the direction of the future, youth and possibility means that the dictum that politicians have to crawl to the Sun or the Mail is overturned. It seems to have come all at once, but in the past few months their hysteria has been vehement. The absolutely open racism of Katie Hopkins and Kelvin MacKenzie's description of Ross Barkley as a "gorilla" have been judged intolerable. Hopkins' immigrant-bashing is not "robust" debate. It is unadulterated hate peddled as unsayable truth.
Increasingly it appears people may look at the pregnancy- and cellulite-policing of the sidebar of shame for a laugh, but have no truck with the actual politics of this paper.
Screaming that Corbyn is some kind of jihadi when real and awful acts of terror were taking place, when citizens of our great diverse cities came together in solidarity and fearlessness, struck the wrong tone. Voters simply switched off the high-pitched whine of targeted character assassination. It was as if they were getting their information somewhere else. To their credit, Corbyn's team knew that and were able to connect.
I certainly underestimated the breadth and the depth of that connection. So did many. The press and broadcasters have relied on old truths: that manifestos don't matter, that tabloid coverage is crucial, that the young are somewhat flaky. Never have I been so happy to admit I was wrong. It was clear even before the results started coming in: the hope of so many on social media and the tirelessness of those out campaigning contrasted with the stunned, sometimes agonised coverage of the old men who govern the airwaves. Did anyone under 30 even appear? This will surely change. The media has to reflect, not simply attempt to create the world.
Even the battering Diane Abbott received in the press, including in George Osborne's Evening Standard, did not stick. She increased her vote share. The papers that regularly boast about having their fingers on the populist pulse failed dramatically.
Partly I think it is because they dwell so much in the past. The endless banging on about Corbyn and the IRA looked creepy and obsessional to many who were open to his ideas about tuition fees and nationalisation. The Corbyn that people actually saw just didn't match the monster that was portrayed .
The Mail sells its world of pain based on fear. The attack it tried to sustain over a panicked 13 pages just looked hyperbolic. Instead, the warnings about Labour became ignorable rages. With May refusing to engage, unable to be spontaneous, Corbyn often just appeared pleasant and bemused. Having destroyed Ed Miliband, the tabloids took it for granted it could be done again with a few key words. Tax. Extremist. Terrorist.
The world has moved on. This is not only the end of austerity, it is surely the end of the hankering for Thatcherism that is still the lifeblood of the men who run these papers.
It matters significantly now that they are out of touch. It matters that their relentless negativity did not chime. In this one moment they are cut down to size: not fixers of government, not the high priests of the electorate but strange angry blokes selling seven varieties of hate while ranting to themselves.
"Best just to ignore them," we can now say to each other – and actually mean it.
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